In the 5th to 7th centuries AD, Europe was in a phase of upheaval: the Western Roman Empire collapsed and the political and social order changed profoundly. Researchers have now analyzed genomes from burial grounds in southern Germany from this period and thereby gained deep insights into kinship relationships, family structures and the exchange between different population groups. Over the generations, people of Nordic descent mixed with those from the Roman Empire, creating the basis for the genetic landscape that continues to shape Central Europe today.
At the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, Central Europe experienced profound political, cultural and demographic changes. The Western Roman Empire collapsed, Christianity spread, and new settlement patterns emerged. “The emergence of new political and social structures in Western and Central Europe during this time has long been attributed to large-scale migration movements,” explains a team led by Jens Bloch from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. “However, new findings increasingly highlight the role of small group mobility in reshaping the Roman world.” Until now, however, little was known about the lives of the simple population who lived in Central Europe during this phase.
Genomes from burial grounds
“To expand our understanding of the demographic processes in this changing socio-cultural landscape, we sequenced genomes from the period 400 to 700 AD from various archaeological sites,” report Bloche and his colleagues. In total, they analyzed 258 genomes from people who were buried in the northern border region of the Roman Empire in what is now southern Germany during the period in question. “The graves, which were often filled with clothing, weapons, jewelry or vessels, offer unique insights into everyday life and death in Europe in the 5th to 7th centuries,” explain the researchers.
In some places, many generations of the local population were buried in the same burial ground. This enabled the researchers to reconstruct kinship networks and draw far-reaching conclusions about ancestry, family structures, lifestyles and migration movements. According to this, two genetically different populations existed in southern Germany in the 5th century: people with Nordic ancestry and residents of Roman settlements whose ancestors came from all over Europe and sometimes even from Asia. Some of them were probably Roman soldiers, some were farmers from distant regions of the Roman Empire who had been settled by the Romans in what is now southern Germany.
Demographic change
In the following centuries, the two groups mixed: “Our population genetic analyzes show a significant demographic change that coincides with the collapse of Roman state structures in the late 5th century, when a founding population of northern European descent mixed with genetically diverse Roman provincial groups,” report Bloche and his team. “Reconstructed family trees indicate widespread intermarriage and minimal cultural differentiation. By the early 7th century, a population had finally emerged whose genetic composition was similar to that of today’s people in Central Europe.”
Blocher and his team also calculated the likely birth and death dates of the individuals studied. Accordingly, the generation period was around 28 years and the average life expectancy for men was 43.3 years. For women, childbirth posed a high risk of premature death, so their average life expectancy was slightly lower at 39.8 years. Infant and young child mortality was high. About a quarter of children lost at least one parent by the age of ten. At the same time, around two thirds of children of this age still had at least one grandparent.
Family structures reconstructed
From the observed relationships, the researchers also conclude that strictly monogamous marriages were the rule. Almost all of the people examined only had children with one partner. This suggests that even after the death of a wife or husband, most people did not enter into a new union that produced offspring – in accordance with the rules of Christianity, which was then on the rise.
The burial sites also suggest that men often stayed in the place where they were born. For example, in a burial ground in Büttelborn, southern Hesse, the researchers identified five generations of male relatives who were buried in close proximity to each other. The bodies of women, on the other hand, were often found in different places than those of their ancestors. This suggests that it was common for women to move in with their husband’s family. In some cases, however, the opposite pattern also emerged. The researchers therefore assume that the patrilocal system was widespread, but was occasionally handled flexibly.
The results also contradict the thesis that demographic change in early medieval Europe was primarily caused by large migrations of peoples. “Biological relationship data suggest that this migration involved individuals and small kinship groups rather than entire populations,” explain Bloche and his colleagues. “Although the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages has traditionally been portrayed as a conflict between the northern ‘barbarians’ and the declining Roman Empire, our results, in line with other recent studies, show a multifaceted change.”
Source: Jens Blöcher (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) et al., Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10437-3